Protection Insurance for Expats
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Protection Insurance for Expats
When it comes to life insurance, critical illness cover and income protection there are specific rules that insurers set about who can and can’t have insurance. There are loads of rules when it comes to getting insurance if you want insurance in the UK but are not a UK citizen or not resident here.
This 45 minute webinar will be give you insights on how the UK and international market works for these insurances, so that you can find the right option for you.
Protection Insurance for Expats Webinar
Protection Insurance for Expats Transcript
The text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record.
Kathryn (00:05):
So thank you everybody for being here for the protection insurance for expats training webinar. I’m Kathryn Knowles. I’m an expert in protection insurance in the personal business and group space in the UK and internationally. And I have Lee Robertson here with me today who is the founder of Okta members who are doing the CPD sponsoring for this, which is absolutely phenomenal. So thank you very much Lee.
Lee (00:31):
Pleasure, great to be here.
Kathryn (00:33):
It’s lovely to have you here and what’s going to happen as well is that Lee is going to be the one keeping me on track because if anybody has ever attended any kind of training with me, you will know that I am a talker. I will absolutely keep going for the full 45 minutes. So Lee, we’ll be keeping an eye on the chat function. Please do send any questions in that you have in there. Ask questions throughout. We can ask questions at the end. The other thing I’m just going to very, very quickly do for you all is put into the chat function, the link to the CPD form. Really, really simple form. So that should be there for you all to see really simple in terms if you just put your name in your address, email address and that you’ve listened to this and there you’d go and that CPD certificate will come straight to your inbox. So today we’re going to be doing a state all about insurance for expats. What that means, there will be some quite technical information. There will also be some general aspects as to what we would be expecting, how we’d go about that process. So Lee, I think you’re starting me off with where you think we should start the conversation if that’s okay.
Lee (01:42):
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks Kathryn. I’m really looking forward to this. For those that don’t know, I am a kind of recovering IFA, if that makes sense. I was an IFA for 30 years but sold my practice about five years ago to set up AL members group, but I’ve always had this passion for protection and you will see me regularly speaking on the circuit about protection, which is why we’re so keen to support Kathryn with CPD and the Practical Protection Podcast.
Attendee (02:10):
Bye bye Bye.
Kathryn (02:14):
Hi there. If everybody, just for anybody who’s just come in, if you can make it show you’re on mute if that’s okay please.
Lee (02:21):
Yeah, that would be great. So listen Kathryn, today we’re going to be talking about protection for expats, which are really specialist subject. I know that’s something that you guys are renowned for about getting difficult and complex cases through. So why don’t you just give an overview of where we’re going to go today with that.
Kathryn (02:41):
Absolutely. So there’s going to be quite a few things we’re going to be going through. We’re going to be going through the way that UK insurers and international insurers differ in the sense of how you would go about applying for the insurance. Also going to be looking a little bit as to what we need to do to make sure that we’re comfortable from a compliance point of view, what our permissions might be, how that might differ between different people, how it can work as well in terms of the different types of options you’ll have because sometimes it’s a slightly different eligibility criteria at times sometimes when you’re doing it internationally. How it would work in terms of being able to use a UK insurer for someone who’s non UK resident and just a real mix really hopefully that’s useful for everybody. So I can always start it off with how they differ if we think that’s a good way.
(03:32):
I think to start, so when we’re looking at things and we’re looking at UK versus international insurers, there are some really, really big differences. So anybody who’s familiar with the UK markets in terms of life insurance, critical cover income protection, you’ll know that what we do is we generally, we get a client, we do research, we find the right insurer, we put an application forward, fingers crossed it’s accepted from application, but there sometimes might be some medicals that might be needed or other extra underwriting in a sense GP reports, things like that. Now with international insurers it’s very, very different in the sense of we do those things, we do the research, we find the options, we’re going to do the application, but the medical is going to have to happen straight away and it has to be done, it might be happening, it won’t be happening, it will need to be done and also the person needs to pay for it themselves.
(04:24):
So in the UK if there is a GP report, if there’s a medical, it would be the insurer that would turn around and say, right, well we’ll pay for this report and we’ll do it a time and place that suits you. That’s generally the way it works. Now, international they will say you’re going to need to have a medical and you’re going to pay for it as a person, a GP that’s approved and that we’re comfortable to say is definitely a gp. It’s just usually that person’s gp, which is fine. They will set what’s required in the medical. So it’s best not to sort of say to me, oh you’re going to need a medical dah, dah, dah, and then they suddenly come back with one that they’ve paid for which doesn’t actually have all the information that’s needed. So the insurer’s going to be saying to us, right, this is what we’re going to need.
(05:08):
The person will need to pay for it and then they can potentially get a refund off that. So whilst they’re possibly thinking, oh that sounds a bit naff, let’s say they will get a refund on the sense of, sorry, I’m also just keeping an eye on anybody’s coming in, so forgive me if I suddenly my eyes dart in different places. So if the insurer offers terms and the person takes the policy, then they will fund the premium. If the person is rated and they don’t take the policy out, then they will refund the premium. But if they are offered the policy and they’ve been given standard terms and they’ve changed their mind, they won’t get that medical refunded to get the refund. We do need to do things like submitting evidence, submitting bills and things like that and then that will be refunded directly to the person.
(06:04):
There’s a couple of things though in terms of eligibility, that’s quite interesting when we’re going to the international market as well. So very different to the UK and also places in the EU with the international insurers they can still gender price. So we just need to be conscious of the fact that people can be priced differently obviously depending upon their gender. The other thing that’s really interesting and kind of doesn’t necessarily sit completely okay with me, I understand the theory behind it, but it’s just one of those ones where I feel some international insurers we can find that a person’s academic qualifications will alter the terms that they’re offered. So the higher the academic qualification, the better the terms will be. That’s a lot to do with socio-demographics, statistics, as I say, it’s one that one for me feels a little bit unusual but it’s important to be aware of it.
(06:56):
It might be something that you need to ask your clients. It’s something that we wouldn’t usually be asking when we’re applying for protection insurances. So in terms of if you’re speaking to a client in, sorry, wondering whether or not that we’re going to need to go to international insurers because it’s quite different as well because there’s international insurance policies that can be done by UK insurers and then there’s international insurers. So the time that we might be needing to go to the international insurers is if somebody doesn’t have a GP record of two years, they usually want to see that and if they’re not UK residents, so that is quite a big thing obviously that they want to know that somebody’s UK resident. But again residency it kind of blurs as we go along. So that could be quite interesting as well because residency for some insurers is based upon where they travel and how often out in the country, but where they consider their main residents to be the uk, even if they’re only here for a few months a year, they might be seen as UK resident.
(08:03):
You can sometimes find that with people who are often working in the Middle East but have got real bases here, the homes are here and that they then want to still have the insurance still based in the UK even though they spend a lot of their time outside the uk or it could be this, say they consider the residency based upon the fact of where they actually live. There’s a couple of things to really be mindful of when you are looking at international insurers too and Lee if you need to stop and give me a chance to have a breath or anything just to grab me at some point, okay, I’m fascinated, keep going. Okay then when you’re going to international insurers, you do need to be very mindful, make sure your documents and everything are altered to what you would usually do in terms of your compliance reports because they will not have the FSCS protection there.
(08:54):
So that’s the financial services compensation scheme that comes with UK insurers. That essentially means that if a UK insurer goes bust, regulators will step in, they’ll make sure that the insurance policies are honored. You don’t have that with the international cover. So it is just an extra thing to be very, very mindful of. And you can also sometimes find that with some international insurers that there are specific rules in the way that they set up their policies. Some of them won’t allow decreasing term insurance, some it has to be certain multiples in terms of the term. So you can do five years, 10 years, 15 years, things like that. And you just need to be really, really mindful of that. Quite an interesting dynamic that can happen as well as that with international insurers, they’re usually are backed directly by the reinsurers, so I’m sure a lots of people here will know this, but just in case, especially for anybody new to the industry.
(09:46):
So we see the insurers, so you see your usual names, UAVs, your LNGs, your lvs, Royal London’s urich, you see all of these at this level’s an exception. So I actually shouldn’t probably have said because U we insure themselves, but most of the insurers can sit here and they’re the names that we usually know and most clients would recognize and then above them is the reinsurers or behind them, maybe I should say that I don’t say any insurers by saying that above them anyway, so possibly behind them and they’re backing them. So these insurers here will take on a certain amount of the risk that they write and the reinsurers go, well you are taking on that and we’ll say that we’ll ensure a certain percentage of what you are writing. And what you can find, which can be quite interesting is obviously each insurer has their maximum that they would insure a person for and that also sits with the re-insurers.
(10:40):
So it can be really interesting is that you might have somebody who’s needing insurance, they might already have insurance in the UK but they need some extra something like that and you’re going to go and speak to an international insurer and it’s quite important to know who’s the re-insurer sat behind them because you might be trying to go all this way through trying to get all this stuff done and then all of a sudden it comes out that actually that person’s at their maximum that they can be with that reinsurer through the UK insurer that they’ve used already. So there’s quite a lot of different dynamics that we need to be seeing there in terms of the options that we have. So in the UK with UK insurers a IG is probably the insurer that works the most in this space. So what they do is they do have a specific international policy that they can do even though they’re UK insurer and that is to do with different treaties that have been set with different agreements with reinsurers and what isn’t isn’t allowed because most insurers in the UK will have treaties with their reinsurers that say UK citizens, whereas A IG have been able to access and gain the bit more of the international market based upon ensuring somebody based upon where they live.
(12:00):
Okay. You also have Guardian and Aviva that have dabbled a bit in this area so they do that as well. And as I say, some of them it is more based upon the rules of eligibility are how much they’re in the uk, how much they’re outside the uk, where they class their main residence and things like that. It’s really dependent upon the reinsurer agreement but the meantime we’re going to be what happens if A IG goes. That’s very interesting and that would be one that I would certainly be looking at as well, just seeing a question coming in, what happens if a IG goes really, really unsure at the moment it is very open in the public and there was a lot of discussion about a IG potentially being absorbed into aveva. So as I say A IG Aveva guardian do work in this space, A IG and Aveva do have different approaches as to the way that they do the insurance.
(12:51):
So Aviva is a UK policy guardian is a UK policy, AIG is an international policy but by a UK insurer. So at the moment it’s really, really unsure as to what would happen but essentially if you found that you couldn’t get it away from a IG, then you will need to go into the international market and there are certain things that we would need to just be looking at for that. So in terms of what we’re doing, sorry, why are we going to be going international? So the main times that we’re going to be going international is if somebody has say doesn’t have those GP records, it’s all about in any of these it’s all about what’s the liability in the uk and that’s not just from what the insurer can do, that’s also what your compliance will allow you. And also really big one here, your professional indemnity insurance will allow you to do so.
(13:43):
In my firm, one of the things that we did is that we went obviously really intensely into figuring out what we could and couldn’t do in different areas. We had to make sure was our professional indemnity insurance happy with us, ensuring people if they’re in this country, if they’re in that country with what that regulator says and sometimes it will change the way that your PI insurance works, but you do really need to keep an eye on that. You don’t want to be in a position where obviously things don’t go as you would be expecting, but usually there does need to be a UK liability to qualify with the insurer and also for your own compliance as well. So UK liabilities, a mortgage, very, very simple just as we would expect. Oh I think we’ve possibly got somebody unmuted if you wouldn’t there. I’ve just spotted somebody so I’ll just quickly muted you.
(14:32):
So very, very standard with the UK liabilities. There’s also things like dependent children. So you might have somebody who has children at boarding school and private school. It might be that somebody has been in a family and the family split up and one of them has now moved to abroad and then there’s children here that they still need to provide support for if anything were to happen to them. Again going into the realms of in that sense kind of insurance that will fulfill maintenance payments in a sense for some time we potentially might be able to look at care home fees if you ask somebody who is living abroad but having to pay significant fees towards looking after a parent in the UK who is in need of a care home inheritance, tax planning, gift planning, all of these things will come into it. We also have as well business liability.
(15:24):
So that could be that in either the personal space, sorry, not business, not the personal space. In the business space or the group space. You might have somebody who is in a contract with a UK company but is living abroad and that can sometimes come into it when we’re also looking at these insurances as to what can and can’t be allowed. But each one of them is individual and you do need to really keep an eye speak to underwriters to sort of say is this going to be possible? And I think a really key thing as well when we’re looking at international is just be very mindful that insurers are constantly watching for any kind of unrest in any country. So anything that suddenly happens can really, really change the outcomes for your clients As you’re going along
Lee (16:13):
Kathryn? Yeah, sorry to but in there
Kathryn (16:16):
For water.
Lee (16:17):
Yeah I thought that might be opportune. Ellis had a hand up but you were talking Ellis, have you still got a question? Ellis Floyd?
Attendee (16:28):
No, didn’t realize I’d put my hand up. I do apologize.
Lee (16:31):
It went up and down. Okay, that’s brilliant. Thank you. It on a break anyway. Okay, thank you.
Kathryn (16:37):
That’s probably just Ellis. I know Ellis you’re probably just thinking, oh just give Kathryn a chance to breathe. She’s just going and going and going. That is what I do. So yeah, so there’s lots and lots of reasons that we might be wanting to do this but ultimately there are certain compliance considerations that we want to do as well. So for myself and what I would be doing with me and my team and when I’m speaking to people, it’s very much a case of why do they want the cover as always, why would somebody wanting this insurance or why do I feel that they might need that insurance? Is there a specific reason? There needs to be a specific reason. And again as say a IG is one that’s working quite a lot in this space, if you do a search on Google for a IG overseas tool even then what it will do is you’ll usually then download a spreadsheet that they have which has got lots of their rules engineered into it and I’ll give you examples of what they can and can’t do in terms of different products for somebody in that situation that you’re looking at.
(17:33):
But as well as looking at, sorry, why we’re doing this and things like that. The other thing is somebody who’s not living in the uk, why aren’t they doing it in the country that they live in? And that’s a really important one to consider as well because for a number of different factors and they can be very, very obvious reasons for this as well and I’ve certainly helped people in this situation. So in the case of well why aren’t you doing it now that you live in Germany, why aren’t you doing insurance in Germany? And with some people it is just simply a case of saying along the lines of they’re very confident in speaking German in this situation, they’re very happy where they are. They don’t plan on coming back to the UK in a sense, but they know that insurance is so technically worded that they just really, really want something in their native tongue to be able to understand and that sometimes can be reasoned because if not could they be reading something in a different language which doesn’t really sort of really make sense to them or some kind.
(18:33):
It’s jagged enough when we know the language ourselves and even when we work in this industry, when you don’t work in protection insurance, if I sit look at something in private medical or travel insurance versus you go around, you can get really stuck in it anyway. So you can understand that it might be that the person says, I do live here but I don’t trust the way that the insurance market works here because of the claims results and things like that. Ultimately it will come down to what you feel comfortable with and what your compliance says that you can and can’t do. Really key things are how long are they going to be outside of the UK for? So the longer that somebody’s outside of the UK for or planning to be the trickier it can be to get insurance the more limited it can be in the product types.
(19:21):
So life insurance in itself probably not going to have too much of an issue in the sense of using a UK insurer. The critical illness cover starts to become trickier the longer that somebody is outside of the uk. And the reason for that, it comes down to once somebody’s lived outside the UK for so long, the insurer starts to analyze them based upon the statistics for that country as if they were living there obviously forever. And the morbidity. So the death statistics and no morbidity is the health statistics get that right and the mortality is the death statistics really do change country to country and it’s not just the case of looking at well what’s the life expectancy? It’s also things like looking at, especially we taking critical illness cover into account the healthcare systems in other countries and granted there’s probably other countries that at the moment are doing far better than the UK but there are those considerations as well.
(20:18):
So it’s very, very complex when an insurer is looking at it. What we would say as well, and I was talking about the professional indemnity side of things as an example, we are able in my company to advise people who live in Jersey, Guernsey Isle of Mann, that’s not necessarily available to everybody and we sought ourselves permissions directly from their regulators to make sure that it’s satisfied our professional indemnity insurance. So even though we could have just gone ahead in a sense with the insurers to do it, we made sure that we had that permission ourselves. And just to make you aware as to what can happen is, so we have permission but we’re also not allowed to go and solicit business there. So if somebody comes to us and finds us that to basically do business with them, that’s fine and to ensure them if they live there, but you can’t just start promoting yourself in that country because of the way that their rules work. And so A IG Royal London Aviva can all work in those areas that I just mentioned there. So that’s Jersey Guernsey and Ale of man but make sure your compliance and your PI are comfortable with what you are doing.
(21:30):
The other thing as well as sometimes there used to be things called passporting as to where you have permissions to do insurance in different countries, that’s gone since Brexit so we don’t need to worry about that. But in any case, because of the way that the insurers work, you’re either going to be doing probably the A IG international policy maybe floating over to what AVEVA can potentially allow sometimes or you will be going international where those passporting requirements are not needed anyway because of the specific route that you’re doing. So why is it so complicated? As I said, it’s so complicated. The re-insurers have got all these different statistics and there’s all these different treaties. So international insurers will have the specific international treaties with the re-insurers directly with them. The UK insurers like a IG will have specific UK treaties but signing international treaties with some reinsurers, which means that what we can do in the UK market for people who are non UK resident is more restricted than if we do go internationally.
(22:34):
So it kind of becomes a little bit of a toss up as to what’s better in some ways because is it better to do a UK policy that’s maybe a bit more strict in what we can do, but you do have the FSCS protections and you know that there’s a lot of security there or do you go internationally where there is sometimes more options in terms of what you can do in terms of critical illness cover, how long you can have that for, but you don’t have the FSCS protections but you will still have the policies backed by the biggest reinsurers in the world.
(23:10):
Moving abroad is probably quite a good one to look at as well. So moving abroad when you have UK policies, it depends upon the policy, it does depend upon the insurer as well and people might be wondering what happens when you’re applying for covid if you’re going to be moving abroad. That’s something where in the application you just need to be really forward with the insurer but there’s also sometimes limits and it’s quite hard to understand what to put forward with different clients depending upon different situations. So you might have somebody, I know somebody works with me and she’ll say, oh I’d love to go move to Australia one day. That’s absolutely a lovely idea. Obviously that lovely, lovely warm weather and everything like that, but it’s a dream, it’s not happening. She’s not looked for work as far as I know, she’s not been looking at houses, she’s not got interviews in place, things like that.
(24:04):
So it is just a, well I’m thinking of doing it at some point. To me that’s not a, I’m moving to Australia kind of situation. If somebody has had those job interviews, if they have been looking at the market then that’s when we’re going to need to say to these shows this person might be moving at some stage or they might definitely be moving, which at this point we’re probably going to need to move more towards that international market side of things where they’re available. But when you do move abroad, when you’ve got a UK insurance policy for life insurance and critical illness cover, it shouldn’t really be an issue on the basis that the insurers, as long as you will keep paying from a UK bank account, the insurers are pretty much okay, the complication can come from claims. So with certain countries the insurers would want you if you were diagnosed say critical illness in certain countries, they would actually want you to go to one of the approved countries that they approve essentially to make sure that you are being diagnosed correctly and that it is being done efficiently.
(25:13):
Because going back to that whole thing of the compliance, why they wanting a UK insurance for this, there’s a claim come through, it’s also quite a lot in terms of money laundering and trying to make sure there’s no financial crime happening in the background. So we just have to be a bit more diligent even more so than usual when it comes to the international side of things, very much depending upon the country as well as to where somebody is living. Income protection is a really interesting one because income protection, it can be done, you can have international income protection policies but they are certainly not my in a sense area of specialism because they are very specific as to who can and can’t offer these kinds of policies really quite held in small groups in a sense. And there are specific limitations. When I was doing some research on it, at one point I was going to try and get a client speak to somebody in that space and they happened to be living in Africa and for one of the insurers, the rule was we will not provide income protection for people living in Africa.
(26:14):
Didn’t get any basis for it or anything. But you can sometimes come across those kinds of barriers and if somebody does have a UK income protection policy and moves abroad, it’s quite likely that the insurer will want that policy to be canceled. Even if you are keeping paying out of a UK bank account, it just becomes a bit different because it’s all to do with the UK tax side of things, which really helps obviously towards the residency, but it’s all to do with how they assess the claim, those percentages, the gross pay versus the net pay, things like that when they are assessing a claim it can become very, very complicated. There’s a little bit of an exception to this though and it is a bit too technical to go into in this webinar, but we do quite a lot of work with offshore workers and you will find some offshore workers that they’re not really sat within the UK tax system even though they kind of are, they’ve got certain permissions and benefits.
(27:10):
So even though they’re not kind of UK tax resident, they are still allowed the policies at times. But again, you just need to be really specific as to the insurers that you are looking at. I’m just making sure quickly look through my notes and go through everything that I’ve said. North America’s a really good one as well, so lots of people want to know can we show people in North America it’s kind of a yes and no situation, which is incredibly unhelpful. I do appreciate that. Reason being is again going back to the treaties, there are certain treaties in place which basically say you shouldn’t really have a UK insurance policy if you’re US residents and vice versa. It’s all to do with the way that the money would be moving over financial institutions and things like that and certain policies and political aspects of things that are very, very intense.
(28:00):
But you can ensure people if they are living in North America, it’s very likely that you would need a solicitor. It’s not an area that I’m an expert in. So if anybody is asking questions about that, I will just go blank, but I will find the information out for you and come back to you if you do have any questions about that that I can’t answer right here. But you can do but it’s just, it is complicated and so you do usually need to have some legal support when you are doing that. You can also find that as well, just in general with UK policies when you are putting them into trust, if somebody is a beneficiary or a trustee and they’re in America, you’ll often find that the insurers really suggest and strongly recommend that you don’t do that. They would usually recommend it should be somebody within the uk.
(28:48):
Again, that comes down to just being very, very clear to clients of the fact that if you have in a sense a hundred thousand pound payout on an insurance policy in the uk but it’s entrust to someone in a different country, they might not necessarily see the full hundred thousand once it’s gone over to them due to the rules of moving money across the international lines. And the other thing though, it’s very interesting with North America we did have this last year is that diplomats are different. So diplomats have a UK address and so even though they are living this person that we were spotting, they were living in America, they had a UK address because that’s the way that it works when you’re in diplomats. So they could actually be insured with a UK policy just quite normally with a UK insurer because of that.
(29:37):
So do keep an eye out for anything that seems a little bit different as well. Don’t just automatically go to Oh no, no, we certainly can’t do that. Sometimes we can have quite unusual situations as well. And probably the last thing because obviously we’ve got about 15 minutes left is for me to just have a quick chat about some case studies and then anybody can ask any questions if they want to. So in terms of case studies, so I thought it’d be more useful to have some case studies of international insurers and what they’re able to offer. So I have two for you. So I have a life and critical illness policy that I was arranging for some people. I’m just going to talk about one of the lives that I was supporting at this time, it was a married couple but they were in their mid forties.
(30:23):
They were based in Europe and there were non-smokers. So that all still comes into play with things whether or not they’re smokers or not. And I say gender will come into this as well. So for this person it was the male life who was more expensive because of the way that the pricing was done. The female life was about 30 pound a month cheaper actually. So for this person, based upon their needs, I’ve done life insurance of 400,000 pounds and 200,000 pounds of critical illness cover in the international market over 15 years now the premium for that was about 180 pounds per month. So that gives you an example of that. The next one because what we can find as well, especially when we’re going into the international space is that it can be very high net worth individuals and we need to be very conscious of that.
(31:10):
And we might as well, it might be that as say I’ve obviously very clear I’m protection insurance, I know about inheritance tax, I know about gift planning, I know how to support people in the insurances, but I’m not allowed to provide advice in terms of I HT planning or gift planning, the actual IFA side of things and stuff like that. So with this one it was very much a case of I was working with an IFA was working with a solicitor as well because there was so much going on with this one. So essentially the next person that I supported was somebody in their early fifties living in Europe. So the last people were living in Europe and UK citizens and with this person they were living in Europe and not a UK citizen. So that’s one of the ones where from our compliance point of view, we really had to sort of make ourselves confident as to why are we doing this insurance for this person, what is the link to the uk?
(32:04):
And for this person there was a significant inheritance tax liability that was potentially due in the next five years if they were to die. So that’s why for us with our compliance we were able to do it because whilst they didn’t kind of fulfill the real sort of UK citizenship of some level of some sort, they did have a liability here, which is why we were able to do it. And now this person was a smoker. So as most of you will know, that automatically made the premiums significantly higher than if they hadn’t been. So with this person in terms of the gifting, sorry, not the gifting in terms of the inheritance tax, we had two 5 million that was potentially due inheritance tax within the next five years if they passed away. And the premium for that was 1060 pounds a month with an international insurer.
(32:49):
So not cheap, they were a smoker. They obviously in their fifties they’re taking out significant sum of money as well, but it meant we could do it because of the fact that there was a liability here. So whenever you’re doing the expat cover, if it’s somebody who’s here and going abroad, generally not going to be an issue but keep an eye on their income protection side of things. But if somebody who’s living abroad, it’s just really going back to that why do they need it? Is there a UK liability here? Even stuff like with the liabilities and I mentioned before, dependent children, you can even sometimes factor in projections for university fees at times. But again, you just need to be really on top of it, speaking with the underwriters at the insurers to make sure that they’re confident with what you are wanting to do so that you can make sure that you can deliver what that client is needing. That’s a lot of information that I’ve gone through and I appreciate. I’ve only stopped was it once, so I do apologize. I say I am a talker. Do we have any questions Lee or do you have any questions?
Lee (33:51):
Yeah, so the floor is open to questions if you want to come on screen please do. If you want to unmute of course please do. I’ve got a quick one with increasingly nomadic people, if that makes sense, people moving backwards and forwards. Is there a bit like with the tax laws, is there a number of days in or out of the UK the impacts on whether it would be a domestic or an international policy?
Kathryn (34:15):
It depends upon the insurer and once the policy’s in place in a sense it doesn’t. In some ways it doesn’t matter. So if you’ve put an insurance in place and someone’s now going to be moving abroad, I say unless it’s in and protection life and critical ask, but it doesn’t matter. They expect people to change lives and things like that. They’re not going to force people to stay in the UK if they’re wanting to go move a abroad and things like that. But yes, you will find that with some insurers they will. So usually when I’m asking people a very initial sort of questions for my fact find, I’ll say, are you outside the UK for more than 30 days at a time for holiday or more than a week for work? Because that’s when it’s going to start capturing. Is this person going to start having a little bit of a, the insurer’s going to have a bit of an extra look at this.
(35:03):
So it can be 30 consecutive days at a time. It can sometimes it used to be things like 90 days as a total across a year. But so each insurer is different. I say sometimes you might have it where someone’s only in the UK for a month at a time and they’re actually spending the majority of the year outside the uk. But because the home is here, the family’s here, everything is here by the fact that they’re living over there just to do work, sometimes they don’t mind that. So really keep an eye on what the questions and I always like to say it’s quite a good idea. I love spreadsheets, so whenever anybody does anything, I’ll probably say this in every single webinar, spreadsheets are wonderful if you’re in a team, Google sheets is wonderful, share ideas, but especially if you start seeing a bit more of this, have a tab in a Google sheet that says international size of things and just put in there, well legal in general need you to be in the UK at this point and this point. And some of them say with a IG, with their international policy, you don’t have to be on UK soil to be able to start the policy. Whereas with other insurers you would need to potentially be on UK soil. Now that might be in the UK itself or it might be that you’re in an embassy abroad and that’s also clustered as UK soil as well. So there’s lots and lots of different ways to look at it. But I say massive fan of G sheets, start writing down these little snippets, really safety time going forward.
Lee (36:31):
Great, brilliant, thank you. Do we have any other questions? If not, I’ve got one more, but you can either put it in the chat guys or you can come on screen entirely up to yourself whilst we’ve got Kathryn and her wealth of experience.
Attendee (36:50):
Can you guys hear me all right? Yeah,
Lee (36:53):
Nice to see you. Yeah,
Attendee (36:54):
Hi. Yeah, sorry I missed it being another call, but unintentionally, and you’ve probably already covered this, I’ve got a potential client who’s currently living in Dubai. He’s been there for six years, don’t think he’s got intentions to come back at some point, but nothing concrete. Where would the provider stand on that because he’s got no fixed intentions to return.
Kathryn (37:16):
And what cover is it that you’re wanting? Is it everything or is it It’s
Attendee (37:19):
Probably just life and kick at this point.
Kathryn (37:21):
Life and kick. So what I would be saying is go do the Google thing of a IG overseas tool calculator, get that spreadsheet so you’ll be able to fill in the details and it’ll really, really help. The life insurance side of things shouldn’t be an issue in Dubai, we do quite a lot with people in Dubai, so that shouldn’t be an issue. It’s the critical illness cover that you can have tricky parts with because often it’s a case if they’re going to be out the country for five years or less, then the scene is pretty much still being here in a sense, if you can, there’s like a job contract that’s going to end because obviously it’s often contractual work there. So if it’s like the job contract’s going to end in two years and you can say, well at the end of two years he might be coming back, he doesn’t know. I think it’s one where that one on the critical illness side that it would be really chatting with an underwriter and just saying, look, we’re a little bit, we are just not sure here. My instinct is if they are really, really not sure when they’re going to come back, I think the critical illness cover would be in the international market that you would need to go to. But then also as well, do they have a home here in the UK at all
Attendee (38:27):
That would literally just chase it up? I think he’s got, he’s on the electoral roll here somewhere, but he hasn’t got a mortgage in the, that’s for sure.
Kathryn (38:35):
Right, okay. Well it could be worthwhile looking at Aveva, you just look at their wording and sometimes when you speak to them, when you speak to them, it is not like it’s different to what you’ve see in their key features, documents and the terms and conditions. So I’d really go into the KD, the TSS and css, double check their wording as to how that applies to your client because again it’s all to do with where they see their main residence and if they have a residence here, if they see that their main residence is in Dubai and that is definitely where they class home, then I do think you’d probably be going to international on the critical illness side of things. And if not, I would think you should be able to look at Aviva a IG on the life and I wouldn’t think that would be, I think probably more a IG. But yeah,
Attendee (39:21):
We’ll see A IG said exactly that on the kick. They said if he’s total stay, there he is five years, then they wouldn’t offer the kick. So I’ll go back on the Aviva front. Perfect, much appreciated.
Kathryn (39:31):
It’s alright. Very happy to help.
Lee (39:34):
Thanks both. And league leave just said that Aviva will cover life cover only from the information he’s seen in Dubai. So he’s also offering support there. So thanks. Any other questions guys? We’re heading towards the end I know, but anything else that anyone would like to ask? Okay, cohost privilege, I’ll drop another one in. You’ve been talking about diplomats, Kathryn, does that apply also to military personnel and NGO personnel, that type of thing or are they seen separately?
Kathryn (40:07):
So it is seen separately? Yeah, so with military personnel it’s not too bad getting life and criticalness for military personnel. It comes down to what their actual job is in whatever branch of the army they’re in and where the deployment, if they’re due to be deployed, that’s what really comes into it. So if they are due to be deployed, that’s where it’s going to be tricky. If they’re not going to be deployed, then that’s usually, I say not too bad. Income protection is a no. So just don’t even really go there in a sense. We used to be able to do well, you can do income protection for somebody in the forces if they’re on sabbatical and maybe like an army medical doctor is on sabbatical to a university in the UK to do a year’s thingy with them. You can maybe do income protection in that kind of regard, but you can’t really get income protection once when they’re definitely in the army employ.
(41:12):
But yeah, it can be tricky but I say it usually comes down to what it is. So again, so somebody in the raft, somebody who’s doing helicopter flying, that’s going to be tricky for critical illness cover because they’re probably going to put on an occupational exclusion on critical illness cover, which I always feel is really interesting that because my thing with the insurers is saying if the helicopter goes down, it’s not critical illness that’s going to be claimed on. So it really confuses me why we have that as an exclusion. I don’t want to make life insurance worse for people obviously in that situation, but it is just that kind of logic thing of, but that’s not what’s going to happen in a sense. But it is because of the fact that there are certain, obviously critical illnesses that’d be much, much more likely to happen if you weren’t and helicopter accident. But it is probably much more likely going to be a death claim unfortunately. So whenever you do speak to somebody in the military, find out what their actual role is, what their duties are, when the deployment’s going to be, and then you can go from there. Obviously where they’re going to be deployed is always a big thing as well just to keep an eye on that.
Lee (42:20):
Okay, brilliant, thank you. So we’ve got about a minute to go, probably time for one final question if there is one. Nope, everyone’s still digesting what you said Kathryn. So just as a reminder before Kathryn says Cheerio, this is the first of 12 sessions. They’re all going to be recorded, they’re all going to be available on Kathryn’s usual channels plus an Okta members group. It’s great to everyone. Thanks for taking the time out your day to turn up and I’ll just hand back over to Kathryn for her close.
Kathryn (42:50):
Thank you very much for coming everybody. I really hope it’s been useful. Please do give feedback to me to contact me and just to let me know how you found it. Did you find the content useful? Was it what you were expecting, was it not kind of thing? Remember in the chat the very, very first comment in the chat was the link to the CPD form and to be able to get your CPD for this. So fingers crossed, I’ll see you in the future. The ones that we’re doing. Next one is IH team gift planning. There’s going to be two in March. It’s usually really one a month, but there will be two in March just because of the way that the weeks and the days fall. And also, I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to do one in the middle of August. I want to enjoy the summer and I’m sure you do too. So it’ll be IHT and gift planning next. And then the one after that is going to be about women’s health and protection and we’ll do a men’s health one towards the end of the year as well. So thank you for being here everybody, and hope to see you again. Bye everybody. Thanks very much. Bye
Lee (43:44):
Everyone. Thanks. Bye.
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